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99 N.C. L. Rev. F. 1 (2020-2021)

handle is hein.journals/addendum99 and id is 1 raw text is: CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN NORTH CAROLINA: A JUSTICE'S VIEW ON WHY WE CAN NO LONGER TINKER WITH THE MACHINERY OF DEATH` JAMES G. EXUM, JR. North Carolina's system for imposing the death penalty is arbitrary, infected with racial bias, and error-prone. It is time for our state to abolish it. This Article chronicles how I reached this conclusion after five decades in the law, including nearly thirty years on the bench, eight of which as chief justice of the Supreme Court of North Carolina. Throughout my judicial career, I struggled to ensure the death penalty conformed with the law. But legal safeguards failed to live up to their promise, and I have concluded that a reliable death penalty system is beyond the ability of human beings to devise. As a state legislator in the late 1960s, I worked unsuccessfully to persuade my colleagues to abolish the death penalty because I thought it was bad public policy that taught the wrong lessons about the value of human life. As a judge, however, I thought the death penalty was constitutional, or could be made so, and that it was my duty to enforce it. But after reviewing hundreds of capital cases, I came to see that, despite our best efforts, the death penalty was not-and will never be-rationally reserved for only the worst defendants who commit the worst crimes. Decades of accumulated evidence now proves that North Carolina's death penalty is unconstitutional and should be brought to an end. INTRODUCTION...................................................................................2 I. FROM MCGAUTHA TO FURMANTO WOODSON: THE STRUGGLE TO MAKE SENSE OF THE MODERN DEATH PENALTY ..............5 II. EVALUATING THE DEATH PENALTY: AN EVIDENCE-BASED, CONSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK.............................................. 8 * © 2020 James G. Exum, Jr. ** James G. Exum, Jr., served on the Supreme Court of North Carolina from 1974 to 1994, and was chief justice from 1986 to 1994. Justice Exum was elected to the N.C. House of Representatives in 1967. He also served as resident superior court judge of Guilford County. In 1996, he returned to the practice of law at Smith Moore Leatherwood LLP where he led the appellate practice group. Justice Exum was a Distinguished Professor of the Judicial Process at Elon University School of Law before he retired in 2017. I would like to acknowledge, with gratitude, the indispensable assistance of Gretchen Engel, Madhu Swarna, and David Weiss of the North Carolina Center for Death Penalty Litigation. Without their help, I could not have brought this Article to fruition.

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